Anger as judge forces BT to block pirate site

Alas poor Internet,

I knew him, Horatio, a resource of infinite value... My gorge rises at it!

I am no fan of copyright infringement, but today begins the censored internet, where money and lobbying governs what we may or may not read or see.

A sad day.

By PaleRider on 28 Jul 2011

So where can people LEGALLY download TV and film that's on now?

Nowhere. Wait five years to see if a TV station airs it, or hope if it by some miracle does appear online it won't be so DRM'd you can only watch it in low res on an "approved device".

Meanwhile Netbinz 2.0 starts up with a varable URL and BT customers get the Motion Picture Association legals bills.

Well done!

Maybe they should have found a judge who knew what an "internet" was?
This now sets a legal precedent for any lawyered-up corporate interest to close Google or any other indexing site.
High cinema prices in a recession and lack of legal avenues to download TV online remain unaddressed. What a hollow victory that was!

By cheysuli on 28 Jul 2011

Subscription service...!?

When a site is generating revenue from someone else's property it deserves to be blocked.

I know plenty of salary earning adults who rarely pay for music or even films.

However I don't believe it's that easy - and it's a drop in the ocean.
Either IMO way it is not the same as "sharing the occasional MP3".

By halian on 28 Jul 2011

And.....

What good will this actually do? If your using this service your aware of how it works and as such will find alternative means to get to the same content.

Newzbin was only 1 element and there are other alternative sites that do exactly the same thing.

I'm not saying what Newzbin is doing is legal, but as someone else alluded to, they need to look at the issue of why people go to illegal sites to download content.

By mesha64 on 28 Jul 2011

@halian

'I know plenty of salary earning adults who rarely pay for music or even films.'

So my question is: if they can't download a film, will they pay for it, or won't they bother watching it?

If we eradicate pircompletelytety, will music and film industry actually earn more money or simply less people will watch films and listen to the music?

Not that I have an answer, of course. Just pondering...

By Josefov on 28 Jul 2011

there should be: eradicate piracy completely. Sorry for messing it up.

By Josefov on 28 Jul 2011

Ho hum.

So they use their child porn blocker to block the site, which will result in the info on how to bypass the porn blocker becoming even more widely known than it already is.

Talk about an own goal.

By omnisvalidus on 28 Jul 2011

Tax them

Maybe the Government should tax the film and music industries at source based on what they say there increased sales would be without piracy? After all, why should the country be denied this extra revenue just because these industries cannot keep their products secure enough to go through the tills.

On second thoughts, such a policy would be a sure way of eradicating piracy at a stroke. :)

By chapelgarth on 28 Jul 2011

One of many?

Is this the only site that fulfils this function?

Or will this be another farce like 'AllOfMP3' where the yanks kicked up an almighty fuss for years until the site disappeared, only for it to be replaced by, apparently, multiple others, about whom no one has said a word.

By qpw3141 on 28 Jul 2011

Hmm

just a quick blog post from newzbin, don;t know if people read it or not
https://www.newzbin.com/blog/?p=62
Blocking will have 0 impact what so ever... and as @omnisvalidus said such tools known to an ever more wider society...
Apart from newzbin, please do a google search for newsgroup search, how many are out there... its like people who think that shutting down a website like that would stop it. I laugh in your face if you think that you will defeat piracy until a suitable substitute is available. + its all SSLed, ISP can see the connection, but they cannot see what we are getting from them, no evidence, no proof, no conviction. The more you pressure P2P the more people will switch to such services as newzbin, the less you will catch the pirates, the more people will switch the more you will lose. I say until those (highly overpriced people in music and movie industry) people who live on a much higher salaries than an average person, lives in a house with more than 4 bedrooms, can afford to go out to an expensive restaurant everyday, and thats in the current conditions. I propose to those music companies and movie companies to reduce the salaries given to their employees to lets say $30-40 k instead of current $100-150k maybe then you will learn and see that actually you are getting a very reasonable amount of money. also as pointed out by @Josefov, will people if forced of piracy, go and buy the product, the answer is if you cannot afford to before, you cannot afford to after, compare the prices between torrenting and buying things, newzbining and buying things. Sorry for my rant, it went on a bit longer than i expected. D

By mobilegnet on 28 Jul 2011

This will do sweet FA to those who want to find the stuff that site had.

If they do want that site they'll find another way anyway.

Back when I started secondary school one of the first things my class learnt was bypassing the school filter.

Granted this will probably be more complicated, but I bet a method will be found very quickly.

Plus I wonder how long it will be before someone blocks a websites for one reason or another e.g. libel?

By tech3475 on 28 Jul 2011

Bypass

Well, one thing they can do is to change to another ISP.

Until there is a central repository for details of banned sites and agreement - either statute or voluntary - to use it, people will just go elsewhere.

And I doubt that there are enough people using the service that the loss of customers will bother BT.

By qpw3141 on 28 Jul 2011

Streisand Effect

As a result of this ruling, loads more people will become aware of Newzbin.

Weirdly, the site isn't going to be blocked until October so it's the equivalent of sticking up a sign saying "Get three months worth of free music and movies here from the site that's so great for pirate material, the studios want to ban it!"

Even in the unlikely event the block works, a whole load of people will be introduced to the world of usenet binaries and NZBs and know how to download them. And there's plenty of sites that offer that function.

By MD1500 on 28 Jul 2011

How will the blocking be done?

How to Access Blocked Websites http://bit.ly/nJTvmn. So what does the ISP use to block a site? What is it actually blocking?

By ANONYMOUS1312 on 29 Jul 2011

Unintended consequences

Over here: http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2011/07/28/will
-newzbin-be-blocked/

Richard Clayton seems to be rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of investigating Cleanfeed without accessing illegal content. However, using Cleanfeed to block copyright-infringing sites (as well as child porn - which it is illegal to view) will promote discussions of how to bypass the system without suggesting criminal intent. If it becomes routine for those who infringe copyright to bypass the content filter that's used to prevent access to child porn it would allow those found with child porn on their computer to claim it got there by accident (while I was looking at xxx this appeared). At the moment the only way to get such material off the internet would be to deliberately bypass a system who's only purpose is to prevent you accessing it - it's much harder to claim you got there by accident.

By TBennett on 29 Jul 2011